Always Never Yours(17)
“If you’re looking for your résumé, I moved it to the table by the door.” I hardly hear Rose’s voice from the couch. She’s taken to lying down for quick naps in the middle of the day.
I don’t bother to thank her because I’m already climbing the stairs, magazine in hand. I check Dad’s bedroom first. His desk is empty except for the stack of budgets for the middle school where he’s vice principal. The obvious next stop is just down the hall. I hear his hushed voice reading Runaway Bunny as I push open the door to Erin’s room.
“Dad.” I try to pack urgency into my low whisper, noticing Erin nodding off in her crib.
Dad gives me an admonishing look and tiptoes out of the room. Only after he’s quietly closed the door does he turn to me, still holding Runaway Bunny. “I just got her down, Megan. This better be important.”
“We’re moving to New York?” I hold up the magazine. “When were you going to tell me?”
The guilt that flashes in his eyes confirms what some part of me was still hoping wasn’t true. “Nothing is final yet,” he says after a moment. It doesn’t matter how gentle and even his tone is, I can barely meet his eyes. He hid a life-changing family decision from me.
I try very hard to control the volume of my voice. “But you’re looking at houses.”
“With the baby coming and Erin growing up, we’re going to need more space.” He’s speaking with the patience I’ve heard him use on overwrought seventh graders.
“So you’re looking in New York?”
“Rose wants to be closer to her parents while the kids are young.” I hear irritation creep into his tone.
“You weren’t going to tell me we’re moving to New York in—I don’t know when?” I realize I’ve crumpled the magazine in my hand. “You expect me to just pack up my bags and move across the country with no warning whatsoever?”
His expressions shifts. Suddenly, he looks surprised, even a little apologetic. “Oh, no, Megan. None of this is happening until you’re done with high school and settled in college.”
Just like that it makes sense. It’s not about us moving to New York. It’s about them moving to New York.
In a way, it’s the natural progression of what’s been happening for the past three years. First my dad got remarried, then he had Erin and started a new family. Now they’re going to leave the town where he raised me and start over somewhere else, finally closing the book on the last remaining chapter of my dad’s former family.
I open my mouth to protest, and then I realize I just want out of this conversation. “I have to go to my interview,” I mutter. “You know, so I can get into college and have somewhere to go when the rest of you move.” I shove the crumpled magazine at him and fly down the stairs before he can call me back.
“Good luck,” Rose wishes weakly as I run out the door.
* * *
Trying to force the conversation from my head, I get into my car and crank up the volume on the stereo, even though I’m in no mood for the Mumford & Sons CD well-intentioned Madeleine burned for me.
I drive to the Redwood Highway for the first time in months. The clouds hang low and heavy in the sky, and the rain patters my windows insistently—it’s a constant presence this time of year. I don’t get out of Stillmont often, because there’s not much to do outside town. The all-ages club on Route 46 straight-up sucks, and I hardly ever drag Madeleine to concerts in Ashland. Her indie-folk playlists tend not to overlap with my Ramones and Nirvana.
The only other reason I have to take the highway up through the hundred-foot redwoods is SOTI. Specifically, the June and December Mainstage Productions. It hurt the first few times I went by myself after my mom moved. We used to go as a family before the divorce, but without my mom to persuade my dad to come, I weighed whether I wanted to go on my own. In the end, I decided the opportunity to watch the best student theater in Oregon was too important to pass up. I’ve gone to every production in the past three years, from Othello to Chicago.
Which is how I know the hour-long drive through the forest by heart. With nothing but the trees to look at, my mind returns to the picture-perfect homes in the real-estate catalog, and I reach for my phone without a second thought to call Madeleine and tell her everything over speaker phone. She’s the perfect listener—she doesn’t sugarcoat or force advice on me, she just lets me talk. It helps a little, the way it always has.
When we hang up, the redwoods have given way to the strip malls and college-town shops of Ashland. I park in the visitor parking lot outside SOTI’s geometric concrete buildings and take a moment to try to dispel the twin discouragements of rehearsal and my fight with Dad. Not how I want to feel before the most important interview of my life.
I’m not like most SOTI students, who go there because they love theater. I’m the opposite—I love theater because of SOTI. Before I cared or even knew I lived near one of the best drama schools in the country, I was being dragged to Mainstage Productions twice a year. I complained every time, but whenever I glumly questioned why we had to go, Mom would explain theater was important to our family. She loved to tell the story of how she and Dad fell in love when they both were stagehands in a college production of My Fair Lady.
I never cared about that until eighth grade, when everything changed. I could feel my family falling apart around me—every morning beginning with a whispered fight and every night ending with my dad sleeping on the couch. I know now that when Mom announced we were going to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it was a final effort to rekindle what they’d lost. It didn’t work, obviously, but when the curtain closed, I realized I hadn’t felt my family fracturing for three magical hours. My dad held my mom’s hand, and at intermission they even laughed while trying to explain the story to thirteen-year-old me.